Scrutiny meeting on Thursday

You can see the webcast here - this blog is just a taster of the issues... We discussed the health service changes very briefly - have now set aside a meeting to look at these in more details on 25th October; hopefully with the NHS - and hopefully time to look at strategies coming out of the County.

We also had the Total Place project - this was down in Dursley and showed that by better coordination of services and a person-centred approach we can really make a difference to the way care services are provided. My frustration is that it is not being rolled out across Gloucestershire quicker.....see report at: www.stroud.gov.uk/info/total_place_report.pdf

A report from the Leader was looking at how we could move to a Committee system of governance - this has got to be better and more participatory - I hugely welcome the steps and it was one of the measures Greens called for in opposition.

There was also a full report back re the canal and I raised a number of issues like the cycle path and how we thank the amazing volunteers we have.

We also discussed this committee's Business Plan over the next 8 months - a new Task and finish group has been set up that will look at playing fields and allotments - I have already submitted a load of info to that to help frame the inquiry - including links to Stroud Towns moves and my passion for natural playgrounds - see my letter a while back here and there is a blog with some great examples if you have loads of time to look (see pic above): http://playgrounddesigns.blogspot.co.uk/